This is one of the biggest advantages with working digital rather than real paints … Other than not having to clean up afterward …. You can change the image after you are done … You are never really done actually … I changed the size from long and narrow to a standard 9 by 12 …. Guy got fatter ….

Well said Gene! Im glad your not going away. Keep on truckin digital and exploring what you can do.
I too enjoy all the artist here in other crafts exploring and experimenting with traditional tiki boundries.
I dont reply as much as I should, but I do enjoy checking in and getting inspired by all the great artists.
Tc seasoned artists and brand newbies!!!!!! Bottom line is, its always important that people are exploring art
no matter what style or media. Lets see some more! MP

Thanks for the comments MP ... I agree, exploring all the possibilities that creativity leads a person to is what being human is about. I have never had the choice ... My crazy brain drives me to exploring ....

I'm just giving some examples of the possibilities that iPad painting allows. As I said before, some folks may not accept what I do as tiki. My cartooning is stylized, impressionistic, and somewhat abstract. This is purposeful on my part. I have studied lots of tiki art and as many island examples that I could find. I made a decision to not copy what I discovered, but use some aspects of what I found and try to develop my own style. The key issue is that I am a cartoonist at heart, much of what I do involves humor, satire, and social comment. This mini tutorial that follows uses a method that is far removed from carving style tiki, but to me it is very tiki in spirit.

OK, now I am going to show one of the ways I have learned to work in the SketchClub app. I have been trying to paint one picture a day since I first started using this app in October. I have almost 200 images done at this point. I did this one a few months ago and I think I have improved since then. This was the first image that I saved steps. (or WIPs also known as work in process) I started with a rough head shape and some basic shapes.

This first step is not a drawing, but a buildup of vector shapes. For a really good example of this method done by a real artist check out the “Wahine Moon And Fire” image by Zerostreet. You can find it in his forum thread or his website. He uses Adobe Illustrator, but there are several Ipad art apps that can do vector. There are a couple of freeware PC programs that are vector based as well. My favorite is called Inkscape. Here I have added a few more vector shapes.

Time to get out the airbrush and add some shadowing. Up until this point I have used the mirror mode of the program to produce symmetry in the image. Now going to painting tools I will need to be a little more natural with the brush work.

Wendy .... It is funny that you should notice .... I thinks lots of my images look like clay ... Way back in the 70's and 80's I was a sculptor and potter ... I became a musician for a couple of decades and got away from clay ... When I retired from music I got back to clay, but that did not last long because of some health issues ... That is why I love following your thread, but why it makes me sad sometimes because I miss getting my hands dirty and opening a hot kiln too soon because of being too anxious to wait ... So now I do digital ....

Gene, I know its not the same thing as slinging real mud and using a kiln, but have you tried working with sculpey clay? It's pretty fun and versatile and can be baked right in your oven. If you miss the real sculpting a lot you may want to give it a try. Unless of course you are having too much fun with the digital painting.